Communications Technology Leaders Set to Deliver Keynote Talks at OFC/NFOEC 2013

Executive level speakers include Caio Bonilha, Nick McKeown, and Joe Weinman

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The 2013 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition/National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC),the world’s leading conference for optical communications and networking professionals, today announced its preliminary line-up of keynote speakers for the plenary session and Service Provider Summit programs. Caio Bonilha, president of Telbras in Brazil and Nick McKeown, professor of engineering and computer science at Stanford University, will present two of the keynote addresses during the OFC/NFOEC plenary session, the conference’s most widely attended event, planned for Tuesday, March 19. Joe Weinman, senior vice president of cloud services and strategy at Telx, will deliver the Service Provider Summit keynote address on Wednesday, March 20. The Service Provider Summit, OFC/NFOEC’s flagship show floor program, covers topics of interest to CTOs, network architects, network designers and technologists within the service provider and carrier sector. Their talks will highlight the latest developments in optical communications technology, discuss current industry trends, and provide insight into the field’s future growth.

“This year’s lineup of keynote speakers highlights the diverse range of topics to be covered at OFC/NFOEC 2013”

“This year’s lineup of keynote speakers highlights the diverse range of topics to be covered at OFC/NFOEC 2013,” said OFC/NFOEC 2013 General Co-Chair Dominic Schupke of Nokia Siemens Networks in Germany. “Attendees can look forward to hearing from these distinguished speakers on some of the hottest topics facing the industry today—high-speed broadband deployment, software-defined networks, and cloud services. We are honored to have these three luminaries as part of the conference program.”

Caio Bonilha, President, Telebras, Brazil

OFC/NFOEC Plenary Presentation: “Telebras National Backbone: Deployment Challenges”

Bonilha, a 30-year veteran of the telecommunications industry, is the president and CEO of the Brazilian service provider Telebras and one of the advisors and architects of the PNBL—Brazil’s National Broadband Program. Prior to joining Telebras, Bonilha, who holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and a Telecom Specialist degree from Unicamp, founded the telecom design firm Brampton Telecom and the engineering services company CelPlan and worked at several other telecommunications companies including Alcatel, Construtel, Elebra, and Telebras R&D Center. He has also consulted on a variety of projects worldwide, including the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee and the World Bank/Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

During the OFC/NFOEC plenary, Bonilha’s talk, titled Telebras National Backbone: Deployment Challenges, will focus on Telebras’ deployment of Brazil’s 20,000 miles of national broadband backbone. The project is part of Brazil’s national broadband plan, which aims to significantly expand broadband density and support local telecom technology deployment, as well as act as a neutral network.

Nick McKeown, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Stanford University, USA

OFC/NFOEC Plenary Presentation: “Software-Defined Transport Networks”

McKeown is well-known for his pioneering work in the development of software-defined networking (SDN) and OpenFlow. His research group at Stanford, where he has been a professor of electrical engineering and computer science since 1995, works on new Internet architectures, software-defined networks and how to make routers faster. McKeown has founded several companies based on the technology his group has developed there. McKeown holds a B.Eng. from Leeds University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a recipient of the Association for Computing Machinery Sigcomm “Lifetime Achievement” Award.

McKeown’s plenary talk, Software-Defined Transport Networks, will cover the development of SDN and OpenFlow and their potential impacts on the future of optical networking. SDN is an emerging approach to network architecture that separates control from the hardware and gives it to a software application.

Joe Weinman, Senior Vice President, Cloud Services & Strategy, Telx, USA

Service Provider Summit Keynote Presentation: “The Impact of Cloudonomics on the Network”

Weinman is the senior vice president of cloud services and strategy at Telx, and has more than 30 years of executive experience in leading technology companies such as AT&T, Hewlett-Packard and Bell Laboratories. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in computer science from Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, respectively, and has been awarded 16 U.S. and international patents in diverse fields. Weinman is a frequent keynote speaker, blogger and the founder of “cloudonomics”—a rigorous, multidisciplinary approach to valuing the cloud—and the author of the book Cloudonomics: The Business Value of Cloud Computing.

At the Service Provider Summit, Weinman’s talk, The Impact of Cloudonomics on the Network, will focus on potential advancements and technology developments in the fast-growing cloud computing business.

About OFC/NFOEC

For more than 35 years, the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition/National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC) has been the premier destination for converging breakthrough research and innovation in telecommunications, optical networking, fiber optics and, recently, datacom and computing. Consistently ranked in the top 200 tradeshows in the United States, and named one of the Fastest Growing Trade Shows in 2012 by TSNN, OFC/NFOEC unites service providers, systems companies, enterprise customers, IT businesses, and component manufacturers, with researchers, engineers, and development teams from around the world. OFC/NFOEC includes dynamic business programming, an exposition of more than 550 companies, and cutting-edge peer-reviewed research that, combined, showcase the trends and pulse of the entire optical communications industry.

OFC/NFOEC is managed by the Optical Society (OSA) and co-sponsored by OSA, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers/Communications Society (IEEE/ComSoc), and the IEEE Photonics Society. Visit www.ofcnfoec.org.